Moments of a Life Untold
by Ginneke
Summary: Seven moments. Seven lies. Seven glimpses into a shattered world and the past of Iliaster's Three Emperors. Gen!fic, heavy spoilers for Episode 134; Moment 4 revised - 11/23.
1. Chapter 1

**Moments of a Life Untold**

Summary: Seven moments. Seven lies. Seven glimpses into a shattered world and the past of Iliaster's Three Emperors. Gen!fic. Heavy spoilers for Episode 134.

Characters: Plácido, Lucciano, José (& others)

Rating: T

Notes/Warnings: Spoiler heavy, so if you're behind or watch the dub, I'd advise you hit "back". Now. Contains violence, some coarse language, and character death.

Disclaimer: YGO 5D's is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi, NAS, Konami and various other organisations. I lay no claim to the characters, situations or plotline of this story.

* * *

Part 1 – A White Lie (500 words)

* * *

Her name is Ayumi. She is nineteen years old to his twenty, and the most accurate shot with a rocket launcher he has ever seen. When the leaders of their resistance unit assign her as his new partner, Plácido thinks they'll finally stand a fucking chance against those bastards.

_In another world, another lifetime, he might have fallen in love with her._

Together they are invincible. Time after time their efforts are met with success. They function as a well-oiled team, he drawing the enemy's attention until Ayumi has the chance to get that ugly head in her sights and fire. The head is the weak spot. Take that down, the other parts follow quickly enough. It's risky work. Plácido has had other partners before. He's seen them die, one by one, horrendous deaths with their high terrified screams echoing around his head for weeks after. But for two, three months now, he and Ayumi have survived, clawed out victory after hollow victory. Him and her against the world.

_Plácido wants to believe they're winning._

He kisses her for the first time after their closest shave yet. They've just succeeded in destroying four of the blue winged monstrosities, but one got in a lucky shot and vaporised a chunk of building barely two feet away from her position. (He still flinches at the memory of smoke obscuring her from sight.) She's filthy with grime, he not much better; the kiss is a brief and quiet affair, a shared recognition of a life they might have known if Hell hadn't swept them up in its wake.

_He can't think straight for the rest of the day, and it terrifies him._

Together, they are so fucking _invincible_ that some days he feels they could ditch the subterfuge and the creeping through deserted buildings, ditch the guerrilla lifestyle and take the world head on. Screw subtlety. Screw skulking and hiding. The world needs somebody to stand up and make their presence known, neon lights and hell-rage. There are other survivors out there who will rally to the cause.

He voices this thought to her, once, under a blanket of smoke and the shrill whine of energy cannons. Him and her against the world. It'd be beautiful.

_She purses her lips and slaps him so hard he's seeing stars afterwards._

Her name is Ayumi, not #D-64, like he is Plácido and not #A-31. (His number is both pride and shame – he lost his parents and younger brother in the initial assault and thought combat a glorious way to die.)

Her name is Ayumi. She is nineteen and fierce and utterly brilliant, and he loves her anyway. Though neither dares give a name to their relationship, he knows her heart better than his own. They'll always be together.

Her name was Ayumi.

...She's gone now. They weren't so invincible after all, but Plácido has no time to mourn her loss. Not now. Not like this.

He raises his gun, and bellows his visceral wrath as judgment falls.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2 – Mask (500)

* * *

At first, he recalls, there were fourteen survivors cramped together in the cellar of a collapsed building. Forced into this existence by the exploding Momentum reactors – they, the lucky ones, the lucky few – while the world moved on without them.

He remembers the moment they opened their cellar to the world outside, when they stared up at a blank and empty sky free of the terrible machines. The pessimistic thought plaguing his every waking moment, the elusive fear that it will never be over.

Their numbers have dwindled with the passage of time. Some venture out for supplies and never come back; some attempt to find other pockets of survivors and find only death. Now he, an elderly man, the last of the original fourteen, wipes dirt from his hands. He steps back and observes the line of graves – only eight. Seven bodies have never been recovered.

Clumsy markers formed from scraps of wooden pallets, with names carved deep into the surface like scars.

He draws the ragged scarf closer around his neck, picking up his cane from the nearby rubble. He can feel the grooves of his own name rub against his fingers. There is nobody to bury him. In time, this will become the last remembrance of who he was.

A warrior.

A fighter.

A man who refuses to give up and lie down, even as the world crumbles around him and the people he loves are torn away, one by one. He wears the scars of the past like medallions, badges of honour gouged into his flesh by the unforgiving passage of time. He is blind in one eye and unkempt from neglect. One's personal appearance is irrelevant under such circumstances as these. He gave up on shaving after the resistance fell apart – the hoary beard is a betrayal of his age, though he lost track of the years a lifetime ago.

José – that is the name he bears, though what use is a name when there is nobody to speak it? – stares at the graves for only a second longer, before he turns to depart. He pretends to leave the past behind him with these wooden markers and the dust of decay, though truth carves scars of its own across the muscle of his strong old heart. He can never forget, forever doomed to remembrance, the elderly chronicler of a history none will ever know. The years weigh heavy on his shoulders. There could be other survivors, for all he knows…

…but there is no guarantee he will ever find them.

He glances back at the graves, and for a moment he sees a splash of luminous red at the base of each marker. The colour has been torn from the pages of memory, interposed on the bleakness of the scene by a phantom trick of the mind.

There are no flowers. He wonders if there ever were, or if they had always been a figment of his imagination.

Those dahlias, with their petals like bloodstains.

* * *

A/N: So, I reckon I should provide a little bit of an explanation.

Those of you who have seen #134 will know just how messed up the future got. You might also have been emotionally _messed up_ by the scenes it depicted. If this applies to you... well, you are not alone. I've been in a miserable frame of mind since Wednesday, when I saw the episode, and writing is the greatest form of catharsis I know (since, well, incapable of crying.) This is a way of purging at least a little of said misery...

Of course, the closer to a "normal" frame of mind I get, the sooner I can do what I'm supposed to be doing - namely, finishing Chapter 3 of **_Rising Signs_**.


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3 – Illusion (618)

* * *

There's a child sitting in the corner, watching the trickling tide of survivors through cunning jade-green eyes. He has sat there for days, just watching. His presence hovers between unnerving, and downright _uncanny._ Nobody ever seems to approach him, even though the shirt he wears is tattered and his cheeks hollowed with hunger. Just another orphan in a ghost town where the hours are marked with gunfire, not clocks, and the grey skies threaten rain that rarely falls.

_He wonders if you notice him, if you can bring yourself to care_.

Plácido pities the child, pities him and the future of violence and bloodshed that will be all he ever knows. But it is not his place to care about one bedraggled orphan when he has a whole sector of city under his protection. He has already given too much of his heart to the war – any more will surely kill him faster than the monsters he fights.

_He wonders what it's like, giving a__ part of your self, your heart, to the dead. He studies you and questions how you still function. You are an enigma, an elaborate puzzle for him to solve You are ... fascinating in a way he cannot explain__._

Plácido knows why the boy unnerves him so – because there is something eerie and familiar about him: that face with its myriad similarities to Ayumi's; those eyes, glittering and focussed, which jab at Plácido like the ones thrown back at him by shards of broken glass.

Despite how impossible it might be, the overwhelming sense of familiarity leads Plácido to wonder if, in another universe, another lifetime, this boy – or a child remarkably like him – could have been his son.

_He can feel it. Your pain. Looking on him makes your pulse stutter out a message of fear and heartbreak, roaring and chaotic. He recognises the symptoms but has no idea of the cause. You intrigue him. What have you seen? what have you lived? He wants to know. Needs to know. _

It has been a month since Ayumi died. Three weeks since the boy first appeared in the dingy claustrophobia of the subway station, one of the few safe places left in this part of the city. One day – it's raining, thank mercy, it's raining – soldiers and civilians unite in the glorious cause and drag heavy barrels up to the surface to collect water for everyone's continued survival. Rain is equivalent to safety, in their minds. The mechanical monsters cannot function in such conditions, and retreat to wherever they came from until the skies clear and the world returns to chaos.

Rain days are days of joy, but also of sadness. Rain days are burial days – so long as you have a body. Plácido's heart is hardened against death, now, but even his weary cynicism falters when he realises the child is gone. The corner is empty. Only a ragged blanket remains, a trifling piece of evidence that somebody, anybody, was here. He asks around, startled to find himself feeling concern over the child's disappearance, but every time he receives the same answer:

"Who?"

Plácido isn't surprised to learn that nobody else has seen the child. He will never admit this, but in a way it comes as a sigh of relief. It's easier to consider the boy a fragment of his guilt, an invention of the mind, than an actual flesh-and-blood boy wearing his dead lover's face. Easier to explain things as the war finally, finally stripping away the last vestige of sanity.

Because people don't just disappear.

_He stumbles away from the shelter, a smile flickering across his face as the rain soaks into his skin and the long red sheet of his hair. He's found it. At long last, he thinks he's found the answer. _

_So how about it, Plácido? How about a little game?_


	4. Chapter 4

Initially published: 2010/11/16

Revised version published: 2010/11/23

There are some MAJOR differences between the two versions, least of which is this now fitting almost-neatly into #135.

* * *

Part 4 – Exploit (1005)

* * *

Interesting.

"What is so interesting about destruction?"

These futures. Come closer. Observe.

"…What am I supposed to be observing, exactly?"

Patience. All will reveal itself. Look.

"Four humans. …But they're just humans. What's so special about them?"

Do not discount so lightly the human ability to adapt, or their refusal to submit to fate. They have a habit of disrupting even the best laid plans. Like this man. Study him closely, my servant. Tell me, what is it you see?

"I – very well. He's made an orphan in the initial attack, joins a rebellion and dies in a foolish assault on one of the Kikoutei. Somehow I cannot see what is so interesting."

Now look at the others.

"…oh."

No matter which of the four dies initially – and one always dies – the others tread the same path. Truly fascinating. One could say they are reflections of the same soul, merely split across different futures.

"But how is this even possible? How can four people follow the exact same destiny—wait. This man, he's different to the others. He doesn't have the same destiny at all; he's—what? He just vanished."

Indeed? Intriguing. So in one potential route… So it appears. All possibilities shall be made equal.

"Master? What is he doing?"

Let us discover for ourselves. It is clear that this man has identified an alternative future. His humanity demands he seize upon it. However…

"…He's going to die."

Yes. It would seem so. Yet in death, he shall be victorious. All it will take is for another to find the same method… and another, and another… Humans are unique and complicated creatures. They never create exact duplicates of another's actions. But in time the differences in their method build up, until eventually one finds an immutable moment and exploits it.

"I still don't understand what You mean."

This young man here… the Signer… he and his, what to call them, counterparts shall confront and defeat a temporal paradox with no preparation, no prior knowledge, nothing but sheer tenacity and a refusal to submit to fate. They are very much alike, our paradox and this trio. They found the same way to confront and defy the past.

"Time."

Very good. Yes. They used Time itself as a weapon, and were aided in their attempts by an immutable point in temporality.

"The Crimson Dragon? But…"

Patience, my servant. Have patience. The Crimson Dragon is a manifestation of the good in human hearts. It would not act to thwart a future that could save mankind. The paradoxical one … it is possible he caused more damage than his method could possibly have resolved, thus, the resolve to stop him at all costs.

"…forgive me."

Your curiosity is nothing to be ashamed of. Wait. All shall be revealed.

"But I don't understand how these three can be of use. None of them has displayed anything remarkable. They're just—"

—Human.

"Yes. They're human, and they live and die as humans. They're not like us."

Do not forget that we too were human, once. ...But you do not remember those times, do you? The past has hidden itself with your rebirth. Fear not, my servant. One day, you shall remember.

"Master. The humans."

Yes, yes… Perhaps we moved too hastily. The possibilities were not in our favour. Our paradoxical fourth has shown us a new path, though he targeted the wrong part of the equation. Tell me, my servant, what would happen if humanity no longer had access to Momentum on such a grand scale? Or, indeed, if a cataclysmic event were to happen in the past. One capable of limiting, if not eliminating, the danger that Momentum presents to their evolution. What then?

"There wouldn't be any need for this destruction. We could save humanity before things got this far…"

Exactly. Hence we shall need our paradoxical fourth, and his genius. Find him before he dooms himself, and lead him to the Dome. Do not let him know who you are.

…And as for the others…

"Just what is it You intend? Why these three, of all the ones on this Earth? There is nothing special about them."

They are the same.

"I still don't understand. You said it yourself. Humans don't copy each other, so they can't…"

They defy such boundaries of logic. Watch, and observe carefully. From the moment of the attack their timelines correlate with pinpoint precision, as do their circumstances. At the exact same moment, in each variation, he loses his family. If he survives the event, precisely eleven years, five months and three days afterwards, the same woman becomes an important part of his life, and expires. Eventually he is left alone, believing himself the last human alive. This is always so, no matter which timeline prevails. This is the source of his despair. He cannot accept the fate that befell him and humanity, much as we could not. A warrior's heart is an easy thing to predict. Offer him the chance to save his doomed brethren… and he will accept without hesitation.

"And You are doing this… why?"

You already know the answer. All possibilities must be made equal. If observation is to be believed, this man—the variations of this man—have demonstrated his selves to be deserving of an alternate path.

"…Who is he?"

His name is… Aporia.

"Aporia? Is that really his name? No wonder he appears to be a cosmic plaything."

Developing a sense of humour, how curious. It appears you are starting to remember what it is to be human. Soon you will be capable of walking among them.

"You are definitely proceeding with the plan, then?"

…Indeed. This one first. Conceal yourself for now, my servant. Should Aporia turn against his designated path, you and whichever warriors of humanity you ally with shall carry the task of stopping him.

"I hear and obey You."

…

_Ah… wha—where…? Where… nngh… no… no!_

…Look at me, child. Do not cry. Nobody can hear you from this place. … Very good. Trust me, child. Trust in me. Have faith, and you shall enter into an alternate possibility.

* * *

A/N: And with this chapter, we slip a little into the familiar territory of Gin & ~speculation~. If you are at all confused about what exactly happened in this chapter, drop me a line and I'll explain as much as the story will allow me.

Beta-read by _Heleentje_.


	5. Chapter 5

Part 5 – Dahlia (1167)

_Music suggested: TTGL OST – Libera Me From Hell_

* * *

The boy known as Lucciano leaves a trail of flowers wherever he goes. Dahlias. Bright, colourful dahlias which sit like bloodstains across the rubble and sadly wave their petals in the breeze. Tokens of remembrance, counters in a game for which only Lucciano knows the rules. The soldier with the blood-eyes has yet to figure out his message.

"Come on, Plácido. You know the answer." He giggles at the secret joke and inches his way across the ruined city. The streets are deserted and the world is his playground. _Tap, tap_ chatter his crutches as he hobbles over broken and crumbling asphalt. The dahlias are slung over his shoulder in a roughly fashioned bag – the remnants of his shirt. Now he wears only the old sleeveless jacket, a tattered pair of shorts and a single shoe, which is falling apart around his foot. He only needs one shoe. Not much use trying to attach the second to a stump, is there? His progress is slow, painfully slow, and from time to time he stumbles. Sometimes he feels the phantom of his old limb, throwing off his balance. Speed? Bah. Stick him near danger and he'll be first on the list of collateral.

But so long as he sticks to the parts of the city where the fighting _isn't_, Lucciano has nothing to lose. Nothing to fear. Nothing to hide. He leaves his heart an open book, so long as nobody is around to see. It's the best way to live, the only way to live.

Until the moment he navigates a corner, forced from the shadows (and safety) of high towering walls. Out in the open, a visible splash of colour against the ruined carcass of the city, he makes it halfway across the rubble before a whine pricks his ears. He turns his head, confused. Then he sees it. He feels a whimper claw its way out into the air. A face of red-and-black peers down at him, and the dimly glowing lines flare into life. The monster is huge and white and terrifyingly human in appearance, and its presence pierces his heart and flings him back into the past. Limp like a ragdoll, and just as capable of resistance—

_flash_

The explosion as the world shatters—

_flash_

The realisation that his parents are dead, dead and gone, vaporised with barely a second to cry out—

_flash_

The ground shattering behind him, force of the energy wave tumbling him down, down, into that crater where papa and mama weren't, wouldn't be again, before the world is replaced with white—

_flash_

Standing alone on the surface while the monster takes aim, Lucciano is paralysed with fear and the sudden understanding of mortality. His eyes go wide. His hands tremble over the stems of his dahlias.

He is going to die.

_**boom**_

Something heavy crashes into him, tumbling him down, down. A scream rushes from him at the shock of impact. The dahlias scatter from him in a flutter of crimson. He lands on chunks of broken asphalt which snatch at skin, scraping trails of blood; his eyes squeeze shut, a response born of instinct. Lucciano can barely hear the staccato rattle of a machine gun over his own chaotic pulse. There is a voice shouting at him, tense with authority, ordering him to run. He can't run! It's just him, and this man, and a monster looming in the otherwise empty street. Lucciano can't focus. Terror coils in the pit of his stomach. He doesn't know what to do. There's nothing he _can_ do. He'll never be able to run. He tries to voice this and it escapes as a desperate outburst of words, tumbling and meshing together in a jumble of Spanish and broken Japanese. The soldier looks at him, then, dropping back behind the outcrop of tarmac-and-concrete that forms a protective barrier. His eyes trickle down to the stump. A curse distorts his mouth.

"Stay here."

"But—!"

The soldier doesn't hear him, or else doesn't listen. He hurls himself back into the open, and the gun resumes its rattle, a deafening _ dak!-dak!-dak!_ A pause, the crunch of boots, restart.

Where are his crutches? There, in the street, with dahlias strewn around them. Lucciano repeats the soldier's curse. He doesn't know what it means; it's just something to say. He tries to crawl to the edge of the outcrop, see what has become of the soldier. Hair hangs over his face like a veil. He snatches it away. His hands grip at the broken concrete and he struggles to stand. He has to see.

The soldier.

Where is the soldier?

Shriek of a cannon. Explosion. _**BOOM**_. Clatter as something heavy falls. Smoke. Trembling earth. He crumples again. Gun silent. No. Gone. Alone. Again. The soldier. He's go—

_DAK!-DAK!-DAK! DAK!-DAK!-DAK!_

—alive. Lucciano's shoulders slump in relief. Alive is undeniably _good_…

Eventually the soldier moves back into view, carrying Lucciano's crutches. His eyes are blank and unreadable, clouded with something that might be anger or buried pain. Lucciano pays no attention to the words directed at him (he is _not_ returning underground, no matter what this soldier says, not going back to those dens of despair) and concentrates on regaining his balance. His hands are shaking, and the crutches almost slip and clatter on the ground. The soldier steers him out into the street. Beyond them, the machine is a smoking husk.

A scrap of red flickers in the corner of his vision, and he turns his head to stare at the mess of petals scattered like confetti. But there! He strays from the soldier's side, stoops – as best as he's able – to snatch the last fluttering token. "Here," he says. Breath escapes him in a giddy shudder of anticipation. He extends his hand, leaning heavily on one crutch, offers a dahlia – petals bruised, stem crumpled – to the man who saved him. If the soldier takes it, his work here will be complete.

The man hesitates. He doesn't accept the gift. His bloody-eyed gaze stabs down. A question hovers in the space between them: "Why?"

"Aww, Plácido—" (_don't call me that_, he snaps, denying the name bestowed on him as he clings to the _other_) "—are you telling me you've forgotten?" Lucciano giggles. The sound is distorted by the remnants of fear shivering through his body. Planting a crutch a little further in front of him, he reaches out and snags his fingers on one of the many buckles and loops of the soldier's uniform. Tucks the dahlia's stem under one such strap – the water flask sitting on the man's hip – and smiles his secret, knowing smile.

"Why?" the soldier demands again, a heavy gloved hand descending on Lucciano's shoulder to keep the boy from hobbling away. "Who are you? What are you playing at?"

"Instability," Lucciano says, giving voice to the one thing he knows this blood-eyed soldier fears. "Dahlias can mean instability. Sounds rather familiar, don't you think?

"Sounds a little like you."

* * *

A/N: I'll probably be writing a revision of Moment 4 in the next few days, based on new information in #135, but the basic principle of the story remains the same. Just so you know. ^^"


	6. Chapter 6

Brief Note: I'd like to thank everyone for reading. The Moments have only been online for... wow, just over a week, but they've already garnered 674 hits! This is the penultimate part, and hopefully a few of the mysteries will start to answer themselves now. (I can't say - the story writes itself.)

* * *

Part 6 – Honesty is overrated (770)

_Suggested music: Meat Loaf (feat. Marion Raven) – It's All Coming Back To Me Now_

* * *

He sits in the shadow of the Monument, for it is the only place where tablets do not litter the ground. José leans his back up against the warped, rusted metal, resting the stick across his folded legs, and with his one functional eye he scours the sky for rain.

But why bother? He is dying. It makes no difference whether it rains or not, whether he can get the water necessary for survival. Sooner or later he will wither and fade, a sad relic of a world that was, and the future will lose nothing.

It has already lost so much more than one tiny life could ever hope to be.

Once upon a time, he tried to save the world. When that failed, he tried to save just the people in his reach, eke out a meagre existence for those he _could_ help. But he failed at that too. Sometimes José wonders if he succeeded at anything at all, or whether it was all just the pitiful attempts of a man too foolish to accept that humanity has doomed itself, and is gone.

He is the only one left.

He sits there for days, or maybe just hours. He cannot concentrate on the here-and-now. From time to time he becomes aware of the dark, or the cold, or the rain that caresses his face before cruelly drenching him and leaving him to shudder in his rags, barely alive, an echo of a man so consumed by despair that even dying doesn't seem worth the effort… but otherwise he is just as hollow and empty as the barren landscape surrounding him on all sides.

Alone.

He closes his eyes. His body is a leaden weight. For a second he ponders what it would take to give up. Death is nothing like going to sleep. He knows this, because he always wakes up.

"For you," says a nearby voice. It is the voice of a child. Another survivor? José claws his way back to consciousness, all too aware of the weakness in his limbs and the effort it takes just to lift his head. A flower hovers in the corner of his vision. A blood red dahlia. It is the first living thing he has seen in days and months and years, since the time when he buried his last companion in a graveyard of rubble and ash.

Scarcely daring to believe, José follows the path of the flower's stem to a hand, then an arm, then the shabby remains of a once-blue jacket. His gaze lingers over this fellow survivor's face, first in confusion, then with a growing swell of doubt. The happy tilt of the child's mouth has not changed at all, despite the passage of decades.

How, he asks, even as his hand lifts up to the dahlia—and past it, his trembling fingers settling over the child's wrist to confirm whether this moment is real. How are you…?

"Heh. You never do what I want." The outstretched hand retreats. The child stands up straight, his crutches scraping across the barren stone, and he turns to regard the landscape through eyes turned solemn. "This place is a nightmare. How do you stand being here? It's so cold."

"You are…" the creases of age furrow as he searches for the elusive name, "…Lucciano."

The boy swivels to face him, a movement involving awkward placement of his crutches and a vague half-twist of his foot. He grins. A faded petal drips from his dahlia.

"Naming an illusion doesn't help to persuade us that you're sane."

"But—you—"

"Only kidding!" he chirps, a high-pitched giggle tumbling from his mouth like the onset of rain. "I'm just as real as you are." As though trying to prove his point, he reaches out and brushes his fingers across the back of José's hand. His touch is ice. The dahlia hangs between them like a terrible omen. Words echo through the dim fog of memory:

"_Instability. Dahlias can mean instability. Sounds rather familiar, don't you think? Sounds a little like you."_

"No," says José, averting his eye from the phantom who mocks him with a smile, "you were never real. You are guilt, regret, despair… but you are not…"

Silence.

He turns his gaze back on the place where the child stood. Only empty ground greets him, empty space, empty hearts – and the ache of despair coiling tighter around him than ever before.

A single petal shivers on lifeless earth. Before he can grasp this token, the last sliver of evidence that the boy exists outside his feverish mind, the wind whips past and snatches it away.


	7. Chapter 7

Here it is, the final Moment. Just a brief disclaimer: I do not own the italicised dialogue at the end of this chapter. It originates from #135 and GX_ST's subs of the episode.

* * *

Part 7 – Doubt (1593)

* * *

It starts as a pressure in the centre of his chest. He is used to this feeling. For years he has wandered with the weight of despair held tight to his battered old heart, and it makes sense to him that it chooses this moment to reassert itself. It is all, he believes, a part of the grieving process. Confronting the pain of loss, and moving beyond it – for the future's sake. It is what the others wanted, the last vain hope they possessed. The two that remain… he and Zone have to keep going. For as long as it takes. He doesn't know if they can succeed or whether their efforts are futile conceits. For a future to even exist, they have to try.

The pressure builds. He does his best to ignore it. It is a vice, a crushing despair, and it will destroy him if he allows it to take control again. He can defeat this. He must.

Strange, though, that his body doesn't want to obey. His hands are shaking with an infirmity of age he has always managed to avoid in the past. The hands that once knew weapons, clawed out victory over hollow victory, dug him out of each new despair… now his hands betray him. Slowly, the pressure in his chest deepens. It smoulders at the edges with the vague surety of pain, but he cannot understand why it feels like the burn is creeping towards his heart. Why does breathing seem so difficult? His vision blurs.

He wonders why he's looking at the ceiling.

But even that fades.

Only the shadows—

—matter now—

_they crowd around him - ghosts - mouths moving - faces hidden - eyeless - voiceless _

Aporia!

_Aporia - yes that is his name - a strange name but it's his - the grooves a distant friction under his fingers - his cane topples to the side - dull clatter - there's nothing now - he can't feel the pain and he's free - no - still chained - still_

Aporia. Do not give up. Hear me, Aporia. Listen to me. 

_Aporia the ghosts whisper and one swims closer - ash-grey eyes - dark hair - concern and the terror of love breaking through her mask of practicality - Ayumi - brilliant Ayumi - she's here - now of all times_

_him and her against the world_

_beautiful_

_invincible_

Stay calm. Aporia, you can overcome this. Stay with me. 

_calm - yes he's calm - calmer than he's been in a lifetime - but Zone are you pleading - you never beg - always in control - Zone - he doesn't understand - why are you so desperate for him to_

_stay_

He opens his eye to a barrier of glass and the steady _blip—blip_ of a heart monitor. It seems that he cannot die. He always wakes up. Is death simply a glorious lie? The spectres of memory are gone now. Gone, save for one who loiters at the side of his soon-to-be coffin. Long red hair and jade-green eyes. The boy, Lucciano, the invention of his guilty despair, come once again at the end of all things.

"Hello," he says, lips attempting a smile. "…Hey, can I call you José?"

"Why are you here?"

"Because I want to be. Because," a small, hesitant laugh, "you need me. You always needed me. Didn't you, José~?"

The rasp of his voice is painful against the silence. "That is not my name."

"I know! Neither is Plácido. But I've given them to you all the same, and you rejected them, just like you rejected this." Lucciano holds up the badge of the dahlia, the same one from weeks ago, from their confrontation under the shadow of the Monument. It drips petals across his casket. Withered tears like flakes of blood. "You didn't know what to believe, so even when your mind insisted I had to be real…

"…but I couldn't possibly be real, could I? I had to be an illusion. Something fake. What, was I your guilt manifest or something? You don't need to answer – your eye tells me _everything_. You named me, José, like I've named you. But I'll accept your name. If you want me to become Lucciano then I will! Just for you. You saved my life back then. I want to do the same for you, José. I want to save you."

The words pierce his defences with utter sincerity, leaving Aporia to question all he has ever thought about this boy with the jade-green eyes and Ayumi's face. The boy who, in another, happier lifetime, could have been… No. Thinking about that is foolish. That could never be. He has accepted this truth long ago.

"You know, I always wondered. Why dahlias, when they mean 'instability'?" The boy he knows only as Lucciano stares down at his faded, dying flower with the curiosity of one who has never fully grasped the enormity of death. "But I told you right from the start! This was never about instability. Not really. Just because they _can_ mean it doesn't mean they always _do_…" The sounds of sulky disapproval tumble around the vast chamber, almost like the child has decided to scold him for never daring to protest the dubious phrase.

"Then tell me what they mean." Aporia phrases it as a statement. Both he and the child know it to be a question.

And Lucciano smiles.

"Faith. 'Good faith', that's what they meant. This was always about faith, _A~po~ri~a~_," he draws the name out, giggling as it resounds to a melody Aporia cannot hear, "about getting you here to this moment in history… getting you to this place… I'm just the messenger, but you, you're important. And we can't lose you here."

Aporia cannot believe the boy. He knows that this time, he is dying—this time, his eyes will close forever. There is no future. Lucciano, despite his insistence, is nothing but a misguided child. There is no hope. There is no faith. There is nothing but the crush of despair.

"If there's no future then why are you trying so hard to fight it? Go on then. Give up. You'll never be able to change things." The green eyes flash away from him, refusing to gaze upon a man who believes only in despair. Crutches tap out a faint rhythm of movement, the slow shuffle of a foot. The dahlia tumbles from the small pale hand, dashes its petals across the glass roof of his deathbed. "If we don't have faith then what do we have? Hypocrite. You've _always _had that faith! And I – I – I refuse to accept your world! You're wrong! There's a future. There's _always_ a future. Just because… no, no, _I_ believe! Zone can make it real, I promise… but you can't leave him alone. Would you inflict that despair on him? Would you?"

He does not reply, but fixes the boy with a weary, hopeless stare. The red curtain of hair is blurred around the edges. His eyesight starts to fade once again. What can a dying relic achieve that Zone cannot? The question remains unsaid. He knows the answer: everything. The chamber is still, silent save for the _blip—blip_ signalling his heartbeat (if he listens close then sometimes he hears it falter, slowly condemning him to his fate), the rasp of his breath, each exhalation like a sorrowful sigh, and the trembling catch in Lucciano's voice as he once again attempts communication.

_Do you want to know a secret?_

The cover slides back – once again, petals scatter into silence – and Lucciano slips a hand through, settles ice-cold fingers at the junction of his neck. A hundred thousand questions blaze in the chasm behind his eyes, a myriad of questions, a single answer promised. Who are you, child, who are you? The boy leans in close. There is a deep solemnity in his expression. How old is he? He can't be older than ten, eleven. He has always been this way, a question mark stretched across an otherwise blank canvas. How, how, _how_. He is like a ghost, but the fingers touching him are real. They have always been real. Even at that time, in the shadow of the Monument, the icy brush of skin… it had been more than the trickery of longing. It has taken him a long time, far too long, to accept it. But his realisation comes too late to understand the boy's final mystery. Breath tickles across his ear – he'd not realised how claustrophobic the environment of the capsule truly is – and into the silence creeps a single word, soft, an exhalation. A name. Aporia feels doubt, disbelief—hope?—clench his heart (the monitor stutters again), and for the first time in years

he feels—

_Laughter. "I'm just as real as you are."_

—like maybe, at the end, he can secure one small success.

As Lucciano disappears (_ghostlike_) into the dark expanse of time, never to appear before him again, Aporia – _José, Plácido, they are the same always the same_ – finds enough hope for one final resolution. No matter what happens to him now…

…he shall never let Zone suffer that terrible fate.

"_My soul exists as three embodiments of despair…!"_

_Three embodiments of despair?_

"…_Use this power I possess… use me as your servant!"_

_Bring back hope… bring back the future… I know you will._

_I promise you, Aporia._

Maybe he smiles. Maybe he manages a faint reassurance. He would like to think so.

For the first time in years, Aporia sleeps. This time he never wakes.

_blip—blip—bleeeeeep_

…But even death cannot subdue a warrior's soul.

* * *

A/N: And with this, the Moments draw to a close. Sixteen days, seven short stories, probably some of the best writing I've ever produced. Thank you all so much for reading this far – at the current reading rate, this will doubtless reach 1,000 hits, making it my fourth most read work on the site. (Keeping in mind that the other three come from _much_ larger fandoms, and have been in existence for 3/4 years, that's rather impressive.)

I'm currently deliberating over adding an _apologia_ ('justification', only not quite—more of an _elaboration_?) at the end of this Moment, looking at and explaining just why things played out as they did – and, of course, clearing up any areas of confusion. It depends on reader response… or my state of mind.

Please don't forget to take a dahlia on the way out, and let us hope that the Hell Aporia lived through can indeed be averted.

~Gin


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